Good morning Lily & JK! Thank you both for writing. By way of background, I was with my ex-wife for 25 years, or since age 18. I came out to her in 2012, separated in 2014, and divorced in 2015. We have three children. In reply: 

1. You're still angry at your [straight ex] wife aren't you?

That's a very good question. On a conscious level, I don't feel angry at my ex-wife. But I've spent most of my life denying or hiding my sexuality, so it's entirely possible that I am angry at her on some level. So let's look at the facts. We're rarely in contact, perhaps once or twice a week. When I post here, I admit I'm perhaps too critical and have a tendency to blame shift on her. However, I don't send her angry emails and we're not friends on Facebook so no cyber stalking. We never argue when we see each other and from time to time I'll attend family functions for the kids. Whenever I see her or her family, we're always polite & cordial. So to answer your question, I honestly feel indifferent towards her. She and I are now co-parents so I now see our relationship as similar to friendly co-workers. So no I don't feel angry towards her but please feel free to challenge me if you believe otherwise. 

2. I believe you feel ashamed for the abusive way you treated your family, but do you ever actually feel the guilt for marrying her in the first place?

Yes! She and I broke up once back in my university days when I knew I was gay. We then reconciled and later married, so I was fully aware of my homosexuality when I married her. Just to be clear, I was abusive with her as well. I want to clarify that I was never physically abusive to my (then) wife and kids, but I was certainly verbally and emotionally abusive. I refused to have sex with her, made her feel this was her fault, and also lied/cheated on her. Rather than admit, 'I'm gay' I reckon I tried to get her to leave me by making the relationship as toxic as possible. In response to your question, for years I AGONIZED over ruining her life and told her as much. Post separation, I insisted on couples counselling. One day in counselling she told me, 'I've forgiven you. Now you need to forgive yourself.' I'll never forget that moment.  

3. My ex used to say 'I never asked to be born' as if, as if it is an excuse.  

I never said anything like this, but I can understand the self-hatred of a gay-in-denial man. 

4. Would you accept that from a man with aids having unprotected sex with you and not disclosing? 'I never asked to get aids'.  Personally, he can share the blame with the person who gave it to him but he has to wear the guilt of what he is doing to you, doesn't he.

​I'll try to reply but admit that I'm not quite sure I understand the question. I think the question is along the lines of 'Would I accept the excuse 'I never asked to get AIDS' from a partner I chose to have unprotected sex with?' I think you're asking whether by calling my ex-wife a co-dependent, I am trying to absolve myself of any blame (or blame shift). Is that correct? 

5. So back to co-dependence - imagine this Sean - imagine if your wife really had married the straight she thought she was.  How do you think her loving and caring and unquestioningly loyal traits would have worked out for her then? Good man, loves her back, she'd have been just fine wouldn't she? 

Absolutely! Of course her life would have been very different and perhaps much happier had she not married a closeted gay man. I hope with all my heart she marries a straight guy who loves and desires her. I reckon for some reason the word 'co-dependent' has triggered the both of you. For that I apologize. So allow me to explain. 

As I share in most of my posts, I am not a mental health professional. So please gage my opinions and posts accordingly. Using my own failed relationship and experience as examples, I'm happy to share why I believe most gay/straight relationships are similar to narcissist/co-dependent relationships. And why? Because during my 25 year marriage, I was a black-belt closeted/narcissist, then post-separation I suddenly and unexpectedly became a black-belt co-dependent. More on that later. 

My ex-wife is the daughter of an abusive, angry, and explosive alcoholic father. As the eldest of three children, she became like a young mother to her family because her own mother was (then) an undiagnosed manic depressive. (I'd like to add that her father recently sought out help and her mother is now on anti-depressants.) My ex-wife married a closeted gay man (me) and her sister married a very dangerous sociopath who hanged himself two years ago. Near the end of our troubled relationship, my ex-wife admitted to me that she was a lesbian who, unlike me, would never 'act on it.' For the final 10 years of our broken relationship, my ex-wife became highly religious and thought she could heal others through prayer. I don't know if she still believes in the healing power of prayer.

​So how did I learn about co-dependency? Near the end of my marriage, I was cheating on my (then) wife and one of my many (male) lovers became more of a boyfriend. In a delicious twist of karma, he was a semi-closeted, self-centred, narcissistic *sshole. I was so alone, so isolated, and so desperate for love that I stayed in a very toxic relationship. I had zero boundaries, survived on emotional scraps, and was desperately unhappy. Sadly, the worse our relationship got, the harder I tried to make it work. Sound familiar? I started researching why ​I allowed this man to treat me like this. I determined he was a semi-closeted gay narcissist and that I had assumed the role of enabling co-dependent. I read everything I could on co-dependency, joined CODA (co-dependents anonymous), and flipped the script. I started to focus on myself and why I'd chosen this man as my partner. I realized that I had no self-esteem, was terrified of being alone, and thereby had zero boundaries. So I rebuilt my self-esteem, forced myself to live alone, and started setting boundaries. Thanks to this work, I found the courage to break up with my closeted boyfriend, telling him with love that hiding his sexuality was a deal breaker. So when I read posts from straight spouses who are seriously considering an open relationship, I feel nothing but compassion because I've been that partner who has no boundaries. He eventually came out to his family, we reconciled, and we're still together. Yep he still tests me, old habits die hard, but I have clear boundaries. Of course, this happy ending is much different from gay/straight relationships because he and I are sexually compatible. I reckon that coming out snuffed out most of our narcissistic tendencies, such as a toxic self-centredness, because we no longer had to constantly wear straight masks. So I've been both the narcissist and co-dependent. But I'm getting off topic. 

​So what's my point? In my earlier posts, as Lily pointed out yes I tried to blame shift most of the relationship problems on to my wife. This was wrong. Straight wives are indeed blameless because most gay husbands hide and lie about their homosexuality. When I refer to co-dependency these days, it is with the sincere hope that straight wives will start to focus on themselves, rather than on broken, mentally-ill, and closeted men. I encourage them to determine why they continue to focus almost exclusively on their broken husbands, either before or after divorce. Rather than blame my wife as I did in the beginning, when I mention co-dependency it's simply to understand why gay/straight people come together like peas & carrots. And I believe that reason has a lot to do with narcissism & co-dependency. I hope that makes sense! If not, please feel free to post again. 

Be well. 

Last edited by Séan (October 28, 2018 5:01 am)

Wait, what? Your ex is a lesbian? How did we get to page 122 without knowing that? So she isn’t/wasn’t a straight spouse at all.

oh Sean, oh my goodness oh I don't think you quite understand how different it is.

I have not seen it before in your thread.  I have wondered.  But you have referred to her as straight, indeed at the top of the post you call her your straight ex-wife but she isn't she's no more straight than you are.

I have sometimes wondered before.  the ongoing irritation with your wife is explained.  your sense that she is partly to blame.  you have gaslighted her but she has gaslighted you and omg all the therapy!!  she organise it?

I am sorry.

Please revisit your thoughts about narcissism.  Narcissists are not known for agonising over causing suffering.

Yes, I have noticed it too - there is a number of couples where they are both in the closet.  My ex had a closet lesbian girlfriend before me, they split up and married straight partners.  Neither of them feel guilt over causing suffering to their partners, quite the opposite it seems to me.  The idea that they might come to feel guilty is magical.

oh Sean, you really have taken an unwarranted extra portion of blame and I thought your story of your current relationship was touching - I suggest you revisit thoughts of co-dependence too and read that tale as a love story - we're all full of mistakes and need to be loved.

there's world of difference between a straight and a lesbian woman. 

it changes the dynamics - neither of you has the power of attraction over the other.  It is often the lesbian or bisexual wives who are the most reluctant to split up.

it doesn't change the sense of betrayal it seems, the bisexual women who have come here on discovery their husband is gay have expressed the same feeling of betrayal the rest of us do.

the religion thing is a big deal and I am glad to be out of it but I naturally do pray most sincerely and hope it makes my long-distance loved ones feel better.

 

I’ve never once seen you refer to her as anything other than straight.

Very little makes sense now, why are you atoning to straight wives when you never committed anything against them? I do wonder now if you just want the attention.

A lesbian wife won’t even have had the same experience as a sexually rejected straight partner.


In fact only recently you said again that you hope that one day she meets a straight man who will desire her as she deserves.

I feel like you’re dealing out the same sort of curve balls and inconsistencies that I heard from my ex.

Last edited by Duped (October 28, 2018 2:03 pm)

Sean,
Even if you didn't mention the thing about your ex I can see it as a good thing. I can also see many reasons why you may have kept it rather muted even if you did bring it up to a degree.
By mentioning that in the beginning, you would have lost an audience that truly needed to hear your honest input. It would also give an appearance of being on the same level as the ones that damaged us.
A blame shifting flag would have popped up to the damaged and all the help you worked so hard on through your posts would have been easily dismissed by many...(myself included).

So I for one, am not faulting you regardless of the disclosure or lack there of. If we all went back and re-read everything each of us wrote, we'd all be accountable for our share of errors. Speaking of, I usually always need to edit my writing because I'm a terrible at it and a lousy typist to boot! 

Back to your life...To me it doesn't matter if your wife had issues of that or not. The rules and feelings still apply to all parties and you've the right to benefit from any gains of support you may glean from here as well. This is especially due since you've put such an extended effort to help others.  

As for those that may disagree with me and feel the need to rip Sean a new wound or open up an old one, (since it's obvious he has them just like us), I'd like to share some things I was reminded about from some of my gay (men) friends about decent human nature. 

I got many different reactions from all of them when they learned of my situation of 'almost' marrying someone I suspected was gay. 
These all happened at different occassions of course and like everyone, the reactions were according to the personalities of each individual and circumstance of the setting:

- One group was ready to join me on a rampage to drag him and any other man out of the closet by the hair of their heads. (Of course that lasted only as long until a new subject came up lol)
- Another group looked rather embarrassed and kept mostly silent, yet affirmed any signs I mentioned seeing and gave me all the proper hugs. 
- My last event involved wine, laughter and comments like, "Well honey can you blame him?!..One look at you and he probably wanted to go straight for a while! " ..... (insert kiss hug flirt flattering comments whatever..)
My point is all of these men had the decent human nature of trying to help and make me feel better about myself. Why? Because they themselves are decent human beings regardless of the mistakes they made and feel ashamed about.
Sean is doing the same but goes an extra mile by helping and advising on this site.
I know it's hard to see things that way, but for all it's worth can act as a beginning stage of healing.

I'm no big advocate for all the LGBTQ hooplah and don't think we should turn this site into some big political support group of such by pushing an agenda either way. 
I am however in support of those who are hurting and need help. While doing so I'm helping myself also with reminders of being kind and trying to see each person for the qualities they have. 

(Even if I've spewed some nasty words in the past it's all a part of healing
XOXO to all. 

Last edited by Scrupulous (October 28, 2018 6:37 pm)